


hello, how are you, my darling, today?

by silky-fsf (SilkyinaBottle)



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Adolescent Sexuality, F/F, Femslash February 2017, Long-Distance Friendship, Post-Fire Emblem Fates: Revelation, Pre-Femslash, Questioning, Self-Discovery, Traveling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-13
Updated: 2017-02-13
Packaged: 2018-09-23 22:15:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9681995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilkyinaBottle/pseuds/silky-fsf
Summary: The trip lasted a week, and the entire time Sakura’s mind did not stray from Elise.





	

**Author's Note:**

> my girls................. why did i have to hurt sakura like this...............
> 
> title is from "i do adore" by mindy gledhill

They took a ship from Hoshido to Nohr. The trip lasted a week, and the entire time Sakura’s mind did not stray from Elise. Her smile, her eyes, her kindness, the warmth of her hands clasped in Sakura’s… She never expected to grow so fond of the other girl so fast.

It wasn’t like she had many friends around her age. Hana, sure, but even she was a few years Sakura’s senior and was determined to see the princess as her liege instead of her friend. Privately, Sakura couldn’t help but miss the old days, when the two of them would stay up long past their bedtime talking and giggling underneath the covers. Long before Sakura ever needed a retainer.

Hayato was close to her age as well, but he seemed determined to spend as little time around her as possible. Sakura didn’t mind much. She normally preferred her alone time, anyways. Besides, more than one person around camp had told her she would be  _ so cute  _ together with Hayato, and something about that just rubbed her the wrong way.

She was fifteen. Considered an adult by both Hoshidan and Nohrian law, but she still felt entirely too young to be paired off and married to another boy her age. But that was what she had always said, back when she was fourteen and thirteen and twelve and eleven…

She was starting to wonder if she would ever feel ready. She knew she would have to, eventually. It was her duty as a princess.

Something about being with Elise, though… It almost made her  _ feel  _ ready, in a way. She felt ready to court someone. To spend her life with someone by her side. To marry, to throw a big wedding, to walk down the aisle and exchange her vows. To love someone.

But every time she tried to  _ apply  _ that feeling to what she had been told—what was expected of her—the feeling went away. She wasn’t quite sure why.

Sakura stared at the rippling waves of the ocean over the ship bow, trying hard to collect her thoughts into some semblance of clarity. They had been on the ocean for four days now. Just three more and they would be back in Hoshido. She should have been happy, by all means, but every time her mind drifted back to Elise, the melancholy settled back in.

She hadn’t wanted to go. She remembered the way Elise had sent her off, by wrapping her arms around Sakura’s shoulders and pulling her into a tight hug. She had even given her a quick kiss on the cheek, making Sakura turn as pink as her namesake. And although her siblings all snickered behind her, and although her pulse raced and her stomach flipped and her heart soared, she tried not to think too much of it. It was probably just a Nohrian thing. A cultural difference.

Still, her mind incessantly wandered, falling into step with the waves crashing against the ship’s hull.

She would be home in no time.


End file.
